


Why

by deutschtard



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Other, Post Reichenbach, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-02
Updated: 2012-03-02
Packaged: 2017-11-01 00:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/349844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deutschtard/pseuds/deutschtard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never doubted him, not once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why

He never doubted him, not once. But every day he walks by 221B Baker street because he’s sure that one day he’ll hear that violin bowing. Or see him pacing like he always did when he was thinking of something.

Perhaps one day the shades would be drawn, and that would be the symbol.

He’s nearly knocked on the door hundreds of times. He’d almost lost count, but John knew Sherlock wouldn’t have, so he began keeping a notebook. There was nothing in it, only the tick marks of how often he’d gone to the apartment but never walked in, how many times he’d locked eyes with Mrs. Hudson and then walked away without a word because he knew, he  _knew_  she’d want to talk and ask him how he was, and he’d have to say fine.

But he wasn’t fine. He never had been. Not since he memorized every bit of that sidewalk outside St. Bart’s. He could recount how much blood was on the pavement to the milliliter, how many people were there, what they were wearing, ever bit of information down to how many drops of water were left on his coat as they lifted him onto the gurney because it had been seared into his retinas. It was what he saw every time he blinked, every time he closed his eyes.

“Why?” He’d say to himself as he paused outside that door, traced the golden numbers with his eye, recalled all the times he’d shut the door in anger or in joy. There was no joy behind that door, not anymore.

“Why?” his psychiatrist had asked him when he came to her after 18 months. He hadn’t even been able to form a complete sentence for her. One or two words at the most. He would have been disappointed in his dwelling. Or that’s what John thinks, at least. John thinks that he would have been disappointed that it had been 18 months and he was still haunted every night, so haunted that he couldn’t even go above the third story in a building without recalling that day.

Nothing ever scared him more than that. Not watching soldiers die in front of him, not watching people being exploded with bombs, nothing set him off like recalling the day everything had left him.

“Why?” he said every day as he ate his lunch by the tree next to that onyx stone. It suited him, he thought. Simple and yet complex, a stone that could be translucent and opaque, menacing and yet the only thing he could hold onto.

John had taken to carrying a small onyx stone on a key ring. The ring wasn’t attached to any keys, just something he carried with him to feel like he wasn’t alone in this world.

“Why.” His many girlfriends left after nights of terrors that woke them with that word on his lips. He couldn’t bear it anymore, couldn’t stand that he’d been so bloody  _selfish_. But no, he hadn’t, had he? He’d done the only thing he could have in that situation.

“Why?” Lestrade had asked him. That was the only question he could seem to get out. They stared at each other in silence, and he’d been unable to answer. The glass of water he’d been given sat untouched as the DCI let him go.

“Why.” He’d said when Molly let him into the morgue.  The two bodies, side by side like pieces of silverware in a forgotten drawer, like dolls in a child’s toy chest of a child who had long since grown tired of toys. He’d stared at both of them. Molly had to hold him back as he screamed at Moriarty’s corpse, screamed until he’d cried, cried until he could barely speak. Then, silent, he stood. He stared at his body and reached out. His hand shook, withdrew twice, three times before he placed it on his cheek.

And then he kissed his cheeks. “You bastard.” He whispered into his ear.

Then he left. Molly stared at the door as he went, and Sherlock’s mind cried out, but nothing was said.

And then, one day, as he hesitated once again to touch that gold-plated knocker, the door swung open and there were those eyes, those cheekbones, that nose.

John thought he was dreaming.

“Why…?” was all he could sputter as he was pulled inside and up the stairs, sat into a chair.

“Because.” Said the baritone voice he’d committed to memory.

 _“Why?!”_  John didn’t realize he was nearly shrieking as he leapt up and aimed to punch at those wiry but broad shoulders before collapsing against them.

“To protect you.”

He never doubted him. Not once. 


End file.
